Pizzeria Bianco: The Answer to Poverty, War and Deficit Spending?

Pizzeria Bianco
623 East Adams St.
Phoenix, AZ






I’m always skeptical of the hype.

Call me a contrarian. Call me a doubter. Or just call me jaded.

Actually, I think after all these years of witnessing crowds overflowing into the parking lots of Applebees, Red Lobster and Buffalo Wild Wings, I never cease to be dumbfounded by America’s love affair with mediocrity.

At this point, an over-hyped restaurant is bound to stimulate my skeptical reflex.

But every once in a while I come across a place so hyped, so lauded, so hipper-than-thou, that it piques my curiosity.

Pizzeria Bianco in Phoenix is exactly that kind of place.

Pizzeria Bianco is the Tim Tebow of pizzerias.

If Tim Tebow is the Second Coming, then Pizzeria Bianco is where the Almighty quenches his pizza cravings.

I first read about Pizzeria Bianco while sitting in a middle seat of a 757 (where else?) somewhere over Kansas in one of those in-flight magazines. A top ten list of the best pizza joints in America.

I immediately tore it out, stuffed in my brief case, and, I’m happy to say, I’ve managed to hit up most of the places on the list. Baltimore, Tampa, Brooklyn, Chicago.

But Phoenix was always a problem. I’ve stopped by Pizzeria Bianco a few times coming to or from the nearby airport and always encountered the same problem.

Hoards of people standing outside the little red brick building in 105 degree heat waiting for hours to get in the place.

No thank you.

Look, I like food as much as anyone. I write a blog about it for cripe’s sake.

But there is no way in a snowball’s chance in the Sonoran Desert you are going to get me to wait four hours for a pizza. I don’t care how good it is supposed to be.

Patience is not one of Suit757’s virtues.

As the years have gone by, the legend of Pizzeria Bianco has grown to ridiculous proportions, winning numerous awards bestowing it the title of “WORLD’S BEST PIZZA”.

As if whoever hands out those awards had actually eaten every pizza on planet Earth.

Whatever.

Rachel Ray, The New York Times, Zagat, GQ, Martha Stewart, Vogue, James Beard. Even Oprah (that’s the kiss of death). All have declared this to be the greatest pizza ever made.

Then one day I’m sitting on my couch at home, cold brew in hand, watching a baseball game and the announcers start vamping about their upcoming roadtrip to Arizona.

And guess what they start talking about?

By this point my curiosity had eclipsed my skepticism. I’ve just got to know. Is it REALLY that good?

Really?

Fortunately, the owners of Pizzeria Bianco discovered a bit of capitalist impulse and came to a radical idea – if you extend the hours you serve those hungry huddled hoards, you’ll make even more money.

So they expanded their hours from just four hours per day to eleven hours per day. Now open 11am to 10pm!

Which works out just fine with my Suit757 schedule.

Done with my last meeting at 1:30. Flight out of PHX at 3:30. Maybe I’ll miss the lunch rush.

Sure enough, the tiny dining room was less than half full with plenty of vacant stools at the bar.

I sipped on a pint of the only beer on tap, Sandstone Cream Ale, while perusing the succinct menu.

Refreshing, but not particularly flavorful, I found myself hoping the pizza would be more inspiring than the local brew.


My second choice, Four Peaks Hop Knot, brewed in nearby Tempe, was much better. Like liquid hops in a can. Literally.

My pizza choice really wasn’t difficult. Out of the six or seven options, I ordered the one with the sausage.

Duh.

Fennel sausage and caramelized onions on “house smoked” mozzarella cheese. Sounds good.

My waiter helpfully pointed out that as presented on the menu, this is a “white pizza”, meaning no sauce. But if I wanted sauce, he’d be happy to throw some on there.

Oh yeah. Gotta have some sauce.

Five minutes later my masterpiece arrived still steaming fresh from the smoky 800 degree wood-fired oven.

If was a beautiful sight to behold. Generous thick-cut sausage slices. Golden-fried sweet onions. Smoked mozzarella and just a slather of tomato spread across a thin crust specked with dark char marks from the brick oven.

This was the moment of truth. I was about to sink my teeth into the greatest pizza ever created by the hands of man. A meal fit only for the Gods – and those mortals foolish enough to wait for four hours outside in desert heat.

Talk about high expectations!

As I lifted that first piece to my mouth and tore off my first bite, the anticipation was almost too much to bear.

Chew. Chew. Chew. Swallow.

Well?

This pizza is really, really good!

The greatest pizza ever to grace our universe?

Oh, come on now.

You’ve got to know Suit757 is too jaded to grant a title like that.

But you know what? There’s no doubt about it. This is darn good pizza.

The savory sausage and sweet onions complimented each other like a marriage made in heaven. And the thin crust, with a toasty flavor fresh from the brick oven and punctuated with natural crisp air pockets, was light enough that I singlehandedly polished off the entire pie.

But the crust was also the source of the only flaw I detected. It got a little too limp and soggy in the middle. Maybe another few seconds in that inferno of an oven might have done it some good.

So there you go. Really good; but not perfect.

And you know what? I’m quite satisfied with that assessment.

I criss cross this great country of ours always on the look-out for the coolest bars, smokiest BBQ shacks and most delicious places to pig out.

I mean, what would it say about me if the rest of the world had already beaten me to the single greatest pizza joint in the galaxy -- and the cure to poverty, war and deficit spending?

I might as well just turn in my Brooks Brothers suit to Goodwill and retire.

Not a chance! Remember, always be skeptical of the hype.

Rating: Seriously Thought About Buying Shirt

Loading Up on Liquid Courage at Buffalo Bar & Grill

Buffalo Bar and Grill
311 S. Beeline Hwy.
Payson, AZ





I guess I’ve been a suit in so many strange places, I’ve become immune to it.

As a younger suit, sometimes it would bother me. Now, with so many miles behind me, I take it as a sure sign I found the right place in town.

The collective head swivel. That’s what I’m talking about.

No hat, no boots, no coat, no gloves. No socks, even. I trudged through the ankle deep slush in the parking lot in flip flops and swung open the door to the Buffalo Bar & Grill in Payson, Arizona.

Yes, I said Arizona.

While I brushed the snow out of my eyes from this freak spring snowstorm, every head in the place turned in my direction.

“I may not have dressed for the weather (this IS supposed to be Arizona, after all) but thank God I had a chance to change out of my suit at the Best Western,” I thought to myself as every eyeball in the place gave me a curious stare.

My courage to ignore the head swivels and stride purposefully toward the bar may come from years of life on the road. Or perhaps it came from the fact that I had another suit with me this time.

Yep. We suits almost always travel alone.

Except tonight. Which came in quite handy as the evening wore on. (Keep reading.)

It turns out we didn’t need to be wearing our suits to stand out like Mitt Romney at a Ted Nugent concert.

That’s because we were the only guys in the place not wearing cowboy boots. Not wearing cowboy hats. And not dancing.

Suit757 DOES NOT dance. Period.

Don’t get me wrong – the band was awesome!

Johnny Cash. Merle Haggard. Waylon. Willie.

One classic country hit after the other – on a Monday night in Payson, Arizona.

“We came to the right place in this town, my friend,” I gleefully told my fellow Suit, hoping that my grizzled experience as a road warrior might some day rub off on my rookie colleague.

Just when I thought life couldn’t get any better, the friendly bartender suggested a Lumberyard Flagstaff IPA draft from a microbrewery about 60 miles on the other side of the Mogollon Plateau.

Good music AND good beer. Nice!

Smooth, but with a strong hoppy kick, this microbrew was perfect for a cold snowy evening.

Especially paired with a cup of chicken tortilla soup.

A house specialty, the spicy soup warmed me up from the inside out. The tortilla strips somehow managed to keep that crunch all the way to my last spoonful.

As good as the soup was, that was merely a warm up for my “Sirloin Steak Melt”, a sourdough bread sandwich piled with shaved steak, onions and melted cheese.

Cheesy and tender, the sirloin in this sandwich puts the entire city of Philadelphia to shame. That is steak and cheese done right!

By the time I hit my third IPA, I was just part of the crowd. Chatting up the bartender, getting (unsolicited) local strip joint tips from the construction worker next to me and singing along to a near perfect rendition of David Allen Coe.

My fellow suit on the other hand didn’t seem to slip into quite the same comfort level. He was still peering nervously at the saddles, boots and antlers hanging from the ceiling while keeping a wary eye on the dance floor.

Might have something to do with the fact that he was perpetually two beers behind me.

Big mistake.

Just as the band launched into a Charlie Pride toe-tapper, one of the local ladies sitting nearby jumped up, lunged in my direction and grabbed my arm, slurring something about “dancing”.

I reluctantly informed her that Suit757 DOES NOT dance.

Under any circumstances.

No matter how many Lumberyard Flagstaff IPAs have come out of that tap.

Since she looked a little dejected, I immediately decided to do the gentlemanly thing.

“This guy would LOVE to dance with you,” pointing to my panic-stricken fellow suit on the bar stool next to my left.

As she dragged him, forearm first, onto the dance floor, I turned to the strip joint connoisseur to my right and we both exchanged a knowing glance of relief.

I know it’s rude to stare, but I couldn’t quite get myself to turn away from my poor fellow suit being dragged around the dance floor.

Like a bad wreck on the interstate, I knew I shouldn’t look. But I couldn’t help myself.

Even managed to snap a couple pictures.

But don’t worry. I’m saving them for when I really need them.

Even the female bartender moseyed over and commented to me in a sympathetic tone, “At least she’s leading.”

Then it dawned on me. Of course I’m immune to the collective head swivels. And the blank stares. And the not so original “You ain’t from around here, are ya?”

And it’s not just my road-hardened experience.

It’s something more tangible than that. More satisfying. More tasty.

I ordered up another IPA and tipped my glass to my fellow deer-in-headlights suit gyrating stiffly to Charlie Pride.

It was at that very moment that I think he figured it out too.

This is why God invented beer. Liquid courage.

Drink up!

Rating: Seriously Thought About Buying Shirt (but we got the hell out of there before she asked again).

Who’s Going to Make My Chimichanga?

Mango’s Mexican Café
44 West Main St.
Mesa, AZ





Who’s gonna build your wall, boys?
Who’s gonna mow your lawn?

Who’s gonna to cook your Mexican food

When your Mexican maid is gone?

        -- Tom Russell, “Who's Gonna Build Your Wall”


If Suit757 and leftist songwriter (as if there is any other kind) Tom Russell ever met up in some back alley honky tonk bar, we’d probably agree on very little.

But his questions are good ones.

So who exactly is going to do all the work that needs to be done around here?

On my latest trip to the Grand Canyon State, I thought that’s a question Arizonans might want to contemplate in the wake of their famous attempt to step into the breech vacated by the federal government’s unwillingness to enforce our southern border.

As always, whether it is the war on illegal drugs or on illegal immigration, our government irrationally focuses on stemming supply rather than demand. Supply always follows demand.

Always. That’s Econ 101.

Last time I checked, no government has successfully repealed the law of supply and demand (although many have tried).

The problem with illegal immigration is our welfare state.

Nearly 40% of legal American citizens do not work for a living. And guess what? They aren’t exactly starving in the streets either.

Fifty million collecting ninety-nine weeks of unemployment checks. Fifty million on Food stamps (now redeemable at Whole Foods!). Eight million on SSDI. Subsidized housing. “Free” healthcare. “Free” cell phones. And on and on.

Who’s going to mow lawns, wash dishes and pluck chicken feathers? For seven bucks an hour?

No one -- if their President is paying them ten bucks an hour NOT to work. (For whom do you suppose these naturalized American looters will be voting next year?)

In contrast, Mexicans only get paid when they work. (They’re not eligible to vote. Yet.)

And thanks to all those Obama voters sitting around their taxpayer-subsidized trailers waiting for Election Day, there’s plenty of work to be done.

As my mother once told me, those dishes aren’t going to wash themselves.

I guess what I’m saying is, I don’t have a problem with Mexicans. I don’t have a problem with anybody willing to work for a living.

The ones I have a problem with are those who think they can live off the hard work of others.

Sure, Arizona and every other state has the right to control its border, but as long as there are lawns to be mowed and Mexican food to be made, I say the more workers, the merrier!

When you dine at a Mexican restaurant in Arizona, you can’t help but think about the controversial issue of illegal immigration.

Maybe I go a little “soft” on illegals because I like good food. And Mexicans make some of the best food on the planet.

Legal or not, I’m just glad someone in Mango’s kitchen makes such a darn good chimichanga.

About as far removed from the border wars you can get, Mango’s is a tidy little store front on Main Street in the well scrubbed white bread Mormon enclave of Mesa.

Mango’s has a little outdoor seating area on the sidewalk, but you’d have to be one hell of a nicotine addict to choose to sit out there in today’s 108 degree heat.

I grabbed a small table against the wall in the air conditioning. And waited.

I thought I was being ignored until I realized how it works here.

Go to the bar, place your order, pay up and take a number card.

Within seconds, I had a basket of chips and thin but zesty homemade salsa.

Within minutes, my chimichanga arrived, looking like a work of art, topped with homemade guacamole and fresh sour cream and a few jalapeño slices, just to liven things up a bit. Beautifully plated with rice and refried beans topped with melted cheese, my chimichanga looked almost too good to eat.

Almost.

As soon as I punctured its crispy tortilla shell with my fork, a massive amount of shredded beef and diced onions and tomatoes poured out. No filler. Just an overly generous quantity of marinated, shredded dead cow.

Chimichanga is translated roughly “thingamajig” in Mexican. It’s basically a burrito that is deep fried.

Do I even need to bother to explain why that is advantageous?

The result is a crispy, rather than soft meat-filled tortilla.

I didn’t need to eat again for another 30 hours.

Yep. Arizona may be trying to get rid of their Mexicans. But Mango’s here in Mesa is reason enough to keep a few of them around.

Rating: Seriously Thought About Buying Shirt.